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A poem by Cathy Stroud, illustrating the gift of each new day. At daybreak as the hour grows late
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A visual essay by the insanely talented Julia Morris, reminding us that "each moment is a sacrament, if we can bear to let it be." PS: If you want to see more of Julia's work, you can find her on Instagram.  A short story by Mary-Kate Burns about coming of age in a small and storied lake town. But the thing that has stayed imprinted in everyone’s memory — long after Mr. Davey’s parents have passed away, and the children and grandchildren have dispersed across the country, and the size of pilgrimage has grown smaller and smaller until one year, the last hangers-on will quit making the trip, altogether — is the high dive. The high dive is, in actuality, quite modest in size. But in memory, it soars. It rises, sentinel-like, off to the side of the lake: a monument to courage on an otherwise subdued horizon. Kid after kid has passed into pseudo-adulthood in the twelve-foot descent between the springboard and the murky depths of Rockhill Lake. An excavation of memory, technology, love, and some hilarious home movie footage from Fr. Zachary Burns. The “greatest hits” of my family’s recovered memories, I think, are something like a debris field. Maybe they’ll never be as important as the events by which our lives are measured—the birthdays, weddings, and landmark family gatherings; or even the cleaner, streamlined events we set out to purposely record. Like debris forever separated from the body of a ship, they’ll always be viewed as separate, and somehow of a different tenor. They may not be the events that define the life of a family, but they are surely the events that explain it. They are the events that, when rediscovered and appraised, seem to point to something beyond themselves—to the larger discovery: the love that infuses them all. A beautiful and jarring poem by Danna Knight. A soldier stands alone A fresh take on these sludgy, confusing days in a poem from Ally Bartoszewicz.
A reflection on the pandemic, and life, from the perspective of English teacher Allie Griffith. Read it here. This could become a bigger question when we think about who we decide is the “author” of all of this. Religious folks might say God, some might turn to political leaders, doctors, medical experts, your favorite news source, all the “isms” that often give us a source of theory, maybe your mom…To simplify this step, I’m going to let the author be You. Us. Me. If we are the author, then the search for meaning in this becomes an individual and collective task. Thank you, Ally Bartoszewicz, for this reflection on a summer to remember in the "Black Diamond" unit. I was struck with the truth that that boy was still in between those two freckled ears, lost in a silent scream of a dropped signal. I no longer saw an enigma, a violent other who rocked back and forth and moved his hands in ways I could never comprehend. I saw a child, a man, a human. Artwork from Ally Bartoszewicz. "...a constant reminder to let God be the ongoing artist of my life, as He was the very intentional artist of me." |